| To: Tony Wilson who started this subject | 3/15/2001 5:44:34 PM | | From: kendall harmon | | | | INTU, good article here
Intuit Says Y2K Freebies Caused This Quarter's Miss
By Adrienne Sanders
Intuit (INTU:NYSE - news) said today that the lingering effects of a Y2K giveaway are the main reason the company will miss its financial estimates for the current quarter. At its annual analyst day Thursday, the financial software and services company opened the morning by cautioning it would log revenue of $425 million to $450 million instead of meeting revenue expectations of $455 million to $470 million for the third quarter ending April 30. In turn, the company lowered its sales estimates for the full year to $1.26 billion to $1.30 billion from $1.32 billion to $1.34 billion.
"The economic slowdown was not the real reason for the warning," said Intuit CFO Greg Santora. Santora explains that in 2000, Intuit gave out 350,000 free copies of its QuickBooks software so customers would be Y2K compliant. As a nasty side effect, those happy recipients aren't upgrading in 2001 at the 20% to 30% rate expected, which pinches the small-business segment that comprises 35% to 40% of Intuit's business. Intuit gave away free Quicken Y2K upgrades last year as well, but Quicken users are still upgrading because of Quicken's relatively cheap price tag -- under $50 vs. QuickBook's several hundred dollar price.
Additionally, Intuit is feeling the pain in the weakened market for Internet advertising. Its Quicken.com portal and QuickBooks Internet Gateway are adding to the company's revenue shortfall. Throw into the mix a slowdown in Japan, and revenue is coming in light.
On the good-news side, Intuit assured the analyst community that lagging third-quarter revenue wouldn't get in the way of business growth. The company promised the Street it would turn in 20% growth in operating income over the next three years -- it's counting on even higher growth rates in 2002 -- and is sticking by operating income estimates of $205 million to $213 million for 2001. (Those numbers exclude things such as acquisition-related charges and investment losses.) The company is a staple provider of personal and small-business financial software, and typically logs the bulk of its yearly revenue in the second and third quarters around tax time. Some analysts felt there was no reason to overreact, as investors did in dinging the stock by 28% Thursday morning, because the revenue dip was minimal.
"Compared to most companies in techland, like Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq - news), Intuit is pretty solid. They had only a 3% revenue reduction and left their profit alone," said David Farina, an analyst from William Blair, who maintains a strong buy on Intuit despite the warning. (His firm co-managed an Intuit secondary offering three years ago.) "Things have to get really bad in this country before people go back to pen and paper to do their taxes."
Intuit revealed the downturn just more than three weeks after reporting its second-quarter results on Feb. 20, when it notched $457.6 million in revenue. Its lower revenue projections for the third quarter represent a 38% increase from the year-ago quarter's $329.1 million.
thestreet.com |
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| To: Larry S. who wrote (1524) | 3/15/2001 9:25:10 PM | | From: Captain Jack | | | | | Whoops-- Larry I know this thread is quiet but did not think it was a month + quiet. Agreed,, nothing has changed! They had much better things to say than ORCL, CPQ, and others and were punished while others went up on much worse news. Sad,,, the vol today indicated blind sales which caused the price drop. Quite understandable-- NOT! A fast recovery or there will be more selling IMO. |
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| To: Captain Jack who wrote (1525) | 3/16/2001 6:32:43 AM | | From: Larry S. | | | | | INTU has been tagged. now it is just another software stock that has warned. the rapidity and depth of the sell-off probably came from dashed hopes that maybe this company would avoid the slump. when a warning was issued, mass panic selling, huge blocks. it will take time for the stock to recover, and we likely have not seen the bottom. but INTU has a history of sharp moves both ways. maybe they soon will report that they're online tax prep service is running far ahead of last year. larry |
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| To: Larry S. who wrote (1526) | 3/16/2001 8:50:06 AM | | From: Larry S. | | | | INTUIT attempts to clarify yest's guidance: biz.yahoo.com
Friday March 16, 8:30 am Eastern Time
Intuit Clarifies Financial Guidance
Company Expects to Meet 3rd, 4th Quarter and Fiscal Year 2001 Pro Forma Operating Income Targets
Company Expects Fiscal Year 2002 Pro Forma Operating Income Growth of 25 Percent to 30 Percent
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2001-- Intuit today clarified the financial guidance it issued on March 15. The company reiterated its fiscal 2001 pro forma operating income commitment of $205 million to $213 million, which represents greater than 32 percent annual growth. This remains unchanged from guidance provided during its second quarter earnings announcement in February and is up significantly from the 13 percent profitability growth during the prior year. Intuit also reiterated that it expects to achieve a minimum pro forma operating income growth of between 25 percent and 30 percent for fiscal year 2002, which begins Aug. 1, and a minimum of 20 percent pro forma operating income growth in each of fiscal 2003 and fiscal 2004.
The company confirmed that as part of meeting its fiscal 2001 full year commitment, it would also meet its third
quarter and fourth quarter fiscal 2001 pro forma operating income commitments. Intuit's third and fourth quarter
profitability commitments are unchanged from the guidance provided during its second quarter earnings
announcement. Those commitments included pro forma operating income of $165 million to $170 million in the third quarter and pro forma operating losses of $47 million to $52 million in the fourth quarter. Due to the seasonal nature of its businesses and consistent with analysts' expectations, Intuit typically has pro forma operating losses in the fourth quarter each year.
Intuit reiterated that it expects fiscal year revenue to range from $1.26 billion to $1.3 billion, an increase of 15 percent to 19 percent over last year, but down 3 percent to 5 percent from guidance the company provided during its last earnings announcement. As it stated on Thursday, third quarter revenue growth is expected to range from $425 million to $450 million, up between 29 percent and 37 percent from the year-ago third quarter. Fourth quarter revenue is expected to range from $200 million to $210 million, an increase of between 23 percent and 29 percent over last year's fourth quarter. |
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| To: Larry S. who wrote (1527) | 3/16/2001 2:02:43 PM | | From: Night Writer | | | | Larry S.,
IMHO some momo shorts jumped on the selling bandwagon for the trip south. When they start closing positions out INTU should recover well above 30. Time will tell.
NW |
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| From: ProDeath | 4/25/2006 11:19:46 PM | | | | | | Turbo Tax Macintosh?
This year I had what was undoubtedly the worst yet of an perennial series of problems with TT Windows. Installation problems, flakes, flaws - you name, this year was unbelievable, and I've used TT since it was a DOS product. Given the Windows machine was a freshly installed XP Pro with all updates and virtually nothing else installed on it, I've had more than enough to jettison Windows and TT completely. I will not pay $70 for a piece of software that causes me to spend hours over two days with tech support just to install.
I have said for some time now that the only reason I keep a Windows installation around is for TT, as other real work on my Intel boxes gets done with linux.
It occurred to me that I might have a final solution to the Windows question if TT is any good on the Mac, can anyone comment, especially on the newer Intel-based Macs? |
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